Dear Brat,

I know you’ve been wondering just what I have planned for you for Valentine’s Day. Last Monday I started keeping track of the ways you showed devotion to your Master. By Friday, just five days later, this is the list I had accumulated:

• Four inappropriate eye rolls when you should have had your gaze lowered.
• Asking me to check a leaky pipe under the bathroom sink just to stare at my ass. (You scratched your lovely nose after you loosened it, leaving a grease stain there.)
• Sticking your tongue out at me when you thought I wasn’t looking. I’m always
• Touching my Global Sai knife block – we’ve discussed this before, and I know you did it, because you left your smeared fingerprints on it (in the shape of an “M”, btw – wiseass)
• Five climaxes without permission – what I was doing to you at the time was irrelevant. You know I don’t tolerate excuses.

This is a total of a dozen infractions. Actually, the number was quite a bit higher, but even my little pain freak has limits, though she unwisely claims to be able to bear anything I can dish out. (Careful what you wish for, brat. It’s never smart to taunt a sadist.)

When you get home from work today, you’ll find your Valentine’s Day gift on the table. A dozen long-stemmed roses, a box of your favorite Belgian chocolates, shea butter soap, and one of my Armani dress shirts. Plus a roll of duct tape and a blindfold. Before I get home from work (8pm sharp), you are required to do the following:

Remove the petals of the roses and place them in a bowl. Trim the stems so they’re varying lengths, and then bind one end with the duct tape I left. Note it is the Duck Brand’s special Valentine’s Day pattern, with hearts and cherubs; never say I’m not a romantic Master. You’ll also notice the rose stems have plenty of thorns. I want my brat to have a very memorable Valentine’s Day evening.

Fill the tub with your preferred way-too-hot water, drop the petals in there and take an hour-long bath among them. I expect you to scrub yourself thoroughly with that special shea butter soap which, as you know from past use, makes your skin even softer. I want to see where those thorns land, kiss each mark, and taste the few tiny jewels of blood I might decide to raise on your delectable ass.

After you finish your bath, put every rose petal in the mesh bag I’ve left on the bathroom counter. Let them drain while you dry and brush your hair. Leave it down. Put on the shirt and nothing else. It’s the one I wore yesterday. I had my dry cleaner press and package it for you, but it will still have my scent, which is what you say you like about them when I catch you wearing one (though I think you just like to aggravate me by getting them wrinkled and rolling up the cuffs).

Take the chocolates and blindfold to the entrance hallway and kneel on the pillow like you normally do to wait for my arrival. Put on the blindfold, then open the chocolates. I want you to pick each one up, press it against your lips and inhale, but you are not allowed to taste them. Do not handle them enough to leave residue on your fingers. They should be as perfect as if you hadn’t opened them at all.

After you’ve handled each one and placed them back in the box, you are to lean forward as if you are going to put your forehead on the floor for me, only this time, you stay poised just above the chocolates, palms flat on the floor on either side of the box. I know you have trouble resisting candy, so as you inhale, I want that denied taste to feed all your hungers:

Your hunger for chocolate, pleasure and kisses.

Your hunger to satisfy me, with your cries, your tears.

Your hunger to surrender your body, heart, soul and mind to your Master.

When I get home, to prove my devotion to you, I will punish you with the thorns, rub the rose petals all over your skin, and dry your tears with my mouth. After I bend you over the bed and claim you in every way, I will let you eat the chocolates, but from my hand only. A reminder that you are my Valentine, now and forever.

Always yours,

Ben